Hannah, of Lucy Larcom’s poem “Hannah Binding Shoes”, was a sailor’s wife in the early nineteenth-century. A weathered woman who has waited twenty years for word of her husband’s whereabouts, she has remained steadfastly by her window overlooking the shore in Beverly, Massachusetts, binding shoes. She continued to ask passing neighbors of news from the harbor, but no news would ever pertain...
On the monday morning of September 16 in 1844, the ship Morrison, of New London, Conn., sailed out for a whaling voyage that concluded in 1846. On board, the first mate Rev. Thomas Douglass recorded the happenings of the Morrison in a log book, often mentioning the poor quality of food, and the ways that the ship’s crew tried to supplement themselves with other foods. Whalers like the Morrison...
The whale industry was a vital part of the American economy in the 19th century. Many able-bodied men risked their lives to bring back the precious oil tied up in the blubber and head case of the enormous beasts of the sea. Thomas Beale, a surgeon aboard a whaling vessel, spent many years observing the whaling industry first hand. He took care to document the anatomy and behavior of the whales themselves...